The final season of Supernatural is all about familiar faces and familiar places, and when the show returns for the back half of the season, Castiel (Misha Collins) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) will be headed back to purgatory.

“Purgatory has changed a little bit — specifically some of the ways we shoot it — but it hasn’t changed a lot in that’s it’s still kind of what it was before, which is what I’d call a monster free-for-all,” Supernatural co-showrunner Andrew Dabb tells EW. “That’s still very much a part of purgatory and what makes it so dangerous.”

And for those wondering, yes, there are still Leviathan there. “I know fans have been waiting for [that] forever,” Dabb says sarcastically about the return of one of the series’ least popular monsters. But the Leviathan won’t be the focal point of the purgatory story. Rather, it’s about what Dean and Castiel are going through. “They’re not going to resolve the emotional stuff, but it allows them to redefine their friendship a little bit in light of what’s happened especially earlier this season,” Dabb says.

As for Sam (Jared Padalecki), he’s stuck with Chuck (Rob Benedict). “God knows everything about Sam and Dean,” Dabb reminds fans. “He knows all their past traumas, all their emotional trigger points.” That means Chuck’s time with Sam is very much about, as Dabb puts it, “What can he do to Sam? Chuck is a petty person when it comes to the boys. We’re going to see Sam root through past trauma and also get hints of, in his mind, ‘What is the worst thing that could happen?’”

And yet, when it comes to this season’s big bad, Dabb warns, “We have not even scratched the surface of what it looks like when God throws a temper tantrum.”

But the hour will offer some answers in regards to Sam’s connection with Chuck. “Sam has been carrying a burden: ‘I have this connection to God, what do I do with it? How can I make it work for us? Is it going to be a thorn in my side for the rest of my life?’ And that’s a question that gets answered in episode 9,” Dabb says.